If you're burned out on Christmas perennials like "It's A Wonderful Life," "Miracle on 34th Street" and "Elf," check out a couple of unconventional holiday movies, both of which have local connections.

Bethlehem native Daniel Roebuck is one of the highlights of "Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever" (2014, Lionsgate, unrated, $15), a new-to-DVD Lifetime television movie about the beloved feline with the cranky facial expression.

Surprisingly, the film is something of an action movie with Grumpy Cat (voiced by "Parks and Recreation's" Aubrey Plaza) spending nearly 90 minutes trying to stop a dastardly mall security guard (Roebuck) from robbing a pet store.

Even though Grumpy Cat gets to drive the getaway car and shoot flares, she's at her best cracking wise. "Don't get sappy on me," the creature purrs at one point. "Wait, I forgot — it's a Lifetime movie."

It's great to see Roebuck display his comedy chops. He's all unctuous charm in the early scenes, boring his fellow mall employees with his long-winded stories.

But when Roebuck is unmasked as the mastermind behind the mall robbery, he gets to reveal a whole other side of his personality. And he's just about purr-fect as the good guy-gone-bad.

"Christmas Holiday" (1945, Universal, streaming on YouTube) is one of the most intense noirs every released by a major studio. Anything but merry, this dark, twisty tale pivots on murder and masochism. It might feature Deanna Durbin and Gene Kelly — who were best known as musical stars — but this crime drama is disturbing enough to wipe the floor with you.

Behind the underrated film is the Wilkes-Barre-raised scripter Herman Mankiewicz, who did a crackerjack job adapting a book by W. Somerset Maugham.

Four years after he co-wrote "Citizen Kane" with Orson Welles, Mankiewicz employed some of the same flashback techniques to spin the saga of a young woman (Durbin) who makes the mistake of falling head over heels in love with a murderous mama's boy (Kelly).

As critic James Harvey once noted, Mankiewicz is largely responsible for the film's "skewed chronology," which makes it feel as if you're stepping "into a labyrinth."

Noir specialist Robert Siodmak ("Phantom Lady") is the director and he employs some stunning camera moves that are nothing short of masterful. In particular, a lengthy scene set during a midnight Mass on Christmas Eve is strangely powerful.

During the shooting of "Christmas Holiday," Mankiewicz was fired at the behest of two Universal execs who caught him drinking on the set.